The March for Science was not what I expected and yet, somehow it was not surprising. I don’t think I have ever been to a March for something before. I have been to campaign rallies, I’ve been to protests, but never a march for something. In some ways, this didn’t seem to be a March for Science as a March against Anti-science – ahhh, Trump. Although everybody at the March seemed to be having a good time, there was also a lot of anger under the surface. 

Still, there were also lots of pro-science people and a surprising number of young women.

The following are Michele’s images…

I ran into the guy above fairly early in the day and it made me realize what is at stake here. Trump may be the poster child for ignoring Global Warming but the list of politicians – who either don’t believe in Global Warming or, if they say they do, are not really doing anything about the problem – is a long one, Sad.

Fifty years ago, the Smothers Brothers were the gutsiest show on television. By today’s standards, they were very mild but they were critical enough of President Lyndon Johnson that Johnson called William Paley, the head of CBS, to complain, leading to this story I heard on NPR.

“On their final show, Dick read a letter he and Tom had gotten from former President Johnson. These days, President Donald Trump responds to Saturday Night Live skits with angry tweets. Back then, former President Johnson, reflecting on his treatment by the Smothers Brothers, responded by writing: ‘It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.’”

Donald J Trump is president of the United States of America. Even if you don’t like it, even if you are horrified, it is still true. What is also true, is that marches like The Woman’s March don’t change that and they won’t change Trump either. Bitching whether it is facebook, Twitter, a blog, or standing on a street corner,  doesn’t do anything but, temporarily, make the bitcher feel better.

I worked on the Obama campaign and went to a couple of Bernie Rallies plus I’ve complained a lot so I figured I had done all that was necessary but I was wrong. I am just beginning to understand what the Tea Party figured out years ago, that getting people in power, whose values match mine, is the only way to get the political result I want. Get involved. The easiest and fastest way to get people we want into power is in the swing districts of the House of Representatives. That is where this Trump insanity started and, if Progressives want to take back the house and end the insanity, we have to get involved. Here is a good place to start. 

We want our politicians transparent, yet we want them powerful as well, and power, even in the best of circumstances, means the management of information, and telling the truth is not managing the information. Nathan Heller in The New Yorker some time ago.

“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Trump at CIA Headquarters.

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,”  Kellyanne Conway, senior Campaign Manager and now counselor to President Donald Trump, to NBC’s Chuck Todd.

What most irks me right now is when my fellow Liberal dismiss Trump as stupid or deranged. The problem is that when one thinks of him as stupid and he does something like the crowd size press briefing, the natural reaction is to say Look how stupid he is, doing something so stupid and counter-productive?  But Trump is not delusional – he just believes what he wants to believe which, BTW, will be much easier now that he is in the Presidential Bubble – he is very smart and he is nasty and cunning; the question should be Why would he do something that seems so stupid and counter-productive, what does he have up his sleeve?